Willingness to Pay for the Butterfly SealIntended Audience: Readers of the Living Non-GMO Blog

Image by Erik Lunsford

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We know non-GMO is the way to go, but how willing are other people in the United States to pay for the extra costs associated with non-GM food production? Let’s take a look.

In 2004, a lone study on U.S consumer tolerance of GMOs focused on GM levels in food and consumer willingness to pay. Results showed that tolerance level was around 5% GM content, meaning that consumers were willing to pay more for this particular GM content level. However, they were not willing to pay additional money for food with GM content lower than 5%.

By our standards, foods with a GM content level of 5% are absolutely not considered non-GM. In order to earn the butterfly stamp of approval, the food must have less than 0.9% GM content.

Executive Director

Student has a passion for bringing awareness to the importance of consuming non-GM food. She spends much of her time teaching people about GMO’s and the harmful pesticides that are used to produce them. When she’s not teaching others, she’s fighting for a standardized means of labeling GM food, so that everyone can be confident in what they eat.

Even worse, U.S. consumers from a second study that same year were at least somewhat willing to consume cereals that were GM to be more nutritional. It is important to point out that there are currently no GM consumer products on the market that have successfully enhanced nutritional value, but it may become a problem in the future if people continue to show a willingness to pay for them.

In 2005, some improvement was seen in another study conducted to analyze willingness to pay for GM food. Consumers were not willing to pay more for GM bananas to have additional antioxidants. However, they still were willing to pay more to have antioxidants in cereals and beef.

The most improvement can be seen in a newer study from 2009. New research came out regarding U.S. consumer’s willingness to pay for non-GM versus GM food. There are many factors that affect a consumer’s willingness to pay for the more expensive non-GM food, such as nutritional value and type of food product.

Consumers were once again more willing to pay for GM foods that were genetically modified for a reason, such as increasing nutrition, but were not more willing to pay for GM foods that were genetically modified for improved production. Researchers said that willingness to pay “was significantly more for either organic foods or those genetically modified to have nutritional benefits over foods genetically modified to improve production” (J. Bernard, Gifford, Santora, & D. Bernard, 2009, p. 510).

The study specifically broke down GM tolerance and willingness to pay for fresh products versus processed products. Consumers were more willing to pay for non-GM fresh products because “non-GM is a more important attribute for fresh products, although the tolerance for GM within non-GM processed products may be smaller” (J. Bernard, Gifford, Santora, & D. Bernard, 2009, p. 510).

Based on production costs and willingness to pay for non-GM food, researchers suggested that foods with less than 1% GM content should be labeled as non-GM, and foods with greater than 1% GM content should be labeled GM based on willingness to pay. Food with just 1% GM content would be very close to receiving the butterfly seal at just 0.1% away.

They noted, “a zero-percent tolerance would be difficult to achieve, given the proliferation of GM foods in the United States and expenses to achieve a 100% non-GM standard” (J. Bernard, Gifford, Santora, & D. Bernard, 2009, p. 510). While we disagree with labeling foods as non-GM that are still 1% GM, it is a step in the right direction from the 5% seen in 2004.

This research is valuable because it exemplifies that there are many people in the U.S. just like us who are interested in non-GM foods and who are not as tolerant of GM foods, especially when the only reason they exist is to reduce production costs. There are still some hurdles, however, with consumers still seeming to approve more of GM food when it benefits them, such as nutritional value.

The most noteworthy aspect of this study is that the level of prior knowledge on GM food affected willingness to pay, with consumers who were more knowledgeable on GM food being more willing to pay for non-GM food. This all goes back to us working to make people aware of how important it is to consume non-GM food rather than the alternative.

Always remember that your wallet is one of the biggest voices you have. Paying for something is another means of supporting the company that produces it. Lowering consumer willingness to pay for GM items and strengthening consumer willingness to pay for non-GM items will slowly bring us to a world with less GM food.

The fight over GM food is not over until all food is accurately labeled with its respective GM content, and we have more non-GM food options. Finally, we will continue to bring awareness to living the non-GMO way through our Non-GMO Project, our blog, and especially YOU!

Hyperlink GuideGMO: What are GMOs?Non-GM Food: Are GMOs Safe?Labeled: Are GMOs Labeled?

ReferencesBernard, J. C., Gifford, K., Santora, K., & Bernard, D. J. (2009). Willingness to pay for

foods with varying production traits and levels of genetically modified content.

Journal of Food Distribution Research, 40(2), 1-11.

Lunsford, E.M. (2013, March). Whole foods announces GMO labels within 5 years. St.

Louis, Missouri: St. Louis Dispatch.